Field of the Invention
Since at least the mid to late '50s, America, indeed the world, has been fascinated with the concept of fast, when it comes to the preparation of food. Everyone is in a hurry, and few believe that they have time to chew their food, let alone sit down and enjoy it.
In the hustle and bustle of today's work-a-day world, highly significant commercial enterprises have been built around fast foods, and the franchise concept, properly operated, is a huge cash cow.
The hamburger was, and is, the all time leader in the fast food franchise trade for several reasons, not the least of which is its ability to be safely prepared in a very short period of time, and, of course, it is an American staple.
Chicken, also an American favorite, has been widely hailed by the health conscious as an alternative to the hamburger, but it has some draw backs, not the least of which is the length of time required, under ordinary circumstances, to prepare chicken so that it is cooked sufficiently to make it safe for human consumption.
In order to speed the cooking process, many commercial enterprises have developed, and exclusively employ, a pressure cooker with an oil cooking medium, into which chicken parts are placed, and which device literally forces hot oil into the meat for rapid penetration and cooking.
Several other commercial enterprises elect, for both aesthetic and flavor reasons, to prepare chicken whole, i.e., the fowl is dressed for cooking, and then cooked, without first sectioning the bird into its well know parts. Preparation typically takes place in a heated environment such as an oven of some sort, with convection ovens currently leading the way due to their even heat and intensity. However, chicken must, for health reasons, be thoroughly cooked, and that takes time . . . typically in the sixty minute range, and current state of the art devices for baking and roasting tend to be less efficient and somewhat slower than is desirable if the fast food market potential is to be optimized.
Indeed, commercial preparers are finding that the loss of moisture in current preparation methods has impaired commercial acceptance of the end product, and to counter the adverse effects of such losses, processors are now injecting chickens, for example with a fluid flavor enhancing medium, to replace, prospectively, that which is being lost in preparation. It is within this environment that the present invention has been developed.
It will be understood that, for purposes of this specification, the following definitions are intended to apply:
FOWL, shall mean any edible bird;
DRESSED FOWL, shall mean a fowl that has been fully prepared for cooking by the removal of feathers, pin feathers or the like, and the removal of all internal organs;
PREPARATION, shall mean the cooking, of the dressed fowl, whether by roasting, baking, or any other means or manner involving the application of heat, or any combination thereof.